Mother’s tears for a stolen son

Lex Hall; 24/4/10; (2 Items)

It was just past sunrise on a cold Alice Springs Saturday when white man Glen Swain started kicking Aborigine Donny Ryder in the head. Consumed by hate, his mind twisted by the full bottle of Bundaberg rum he had drunk through the night, Swain could think only of revenge against the black man who had thrown a bottle at his mate’s car. The trainee pest exterminator lined up Ryder, lying defenceless in the red dirt, and delivered two vicious kicks to his head, stopping only when he noticed his victim was motionless, “sort of like a rag doll”, as he told police. Swain would later explain the cowardly attack as a case of “tunnel vision”. “I was doing what I was doing, not worrying what everybody else was doing,” he said during a police re-enactment at the scene.

‘Antagonism’ towards Aborigines led to brutal killing23/4/10
Justice Brian Martin… “[Mr Ryder’s killing] has caused deep and acute divisions.”
A Chief Justice has sentence five men to prison for killing a man in what the judge said was an attack fuelled by “antagonism towards Aboriginal people”. Kwementyaye Ryder, 33, died after five young white men went hooning around the Todd River bed in Alice Springs to harass Aboriginal people camping there, the Northern Territory News reports. Scott Doody, Timothy Hird, Anton Kloeden, Joshua Spears and Glen Swain each pleaded guilty to manslaughter for attacking Mr Ryder after he threw a bottle at their car in July last year. Doody was sentenced to four years in prison suspended after 12 months. Hird, Kloeden and Spears were sentenced to six years with a non-parole period of four years. Swain was sentenced to five-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of three-and-a-half.
See: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/antagonism-towards-aborigines-led-to-brutal-killing/story-fn3dxity-1225857423100; Racial jibes as five jailed for killing Aborigine; Lindsay Murdoch; 24/4/10; http://www.smh.com.au/national/racial-jibes-as-five-jailed-for-killing-aborigine-20100423-tj41.html